This is probably a stupid gun question

[Leftsolidarity]

How do people so easily get away with gun-related crimes? I know cops can tell whether or not someone was shot with a certain gun and all that CSI crap.

Coming from area with a lot of crime and a number of shootings recently, I wonder how people don't get caught. What about the whole stuff of "that gun was bought here by this person" thing with serial numbers?

And if the answer is black market guns, where do those come from? Don't they still have numbers?

[a rebel]

not to mention that if your a half -decent crook your scratching those cereal numbers off anyway, and alot of guns come from legal gun shops who will sell illegally to some and proxy sales.

[OHumanista]

And I don't know about most of the US but here in Brasil the whole CSI thing only happens in that series. The police is absolutely clueless on most cases.:p

[ellipsis]

Casings don't tell you anything without a gun to match them to. Ballistics analysis is almost impossible on hollow points and are not so indisputable as one would think. For example you can change out the firing pin and barrel on a handgun and both the primer strike on the casing and the grooves on the bullet itself will be different.

Seriously you're citing CSI? Do you believe everything you see on TV? Cops are far less competent IRL.

Most black market guns are either stolen or bought via proxy.

Guns also move via legal private transfers, although you can't private transfer handguns. This means one private citizen and sell a gun to another without any sort of background check or government paperwork. This makes tracing guns a lot harder. There is also not a central database of "legal, registered guns."

[heyjoe]

In most states in the united states you can do face to face transactions between private individuals for handguns. of course as Redson stated there would be no record of that. so the only record would be the original owner which would be recorded on a form and in a book at the gun shop the handgun was originally bought at.

the ballistic markings made by a handgun or any gun for that matter will change over time simply by shooting it.

csi is fantasy land.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The police is absolutely clueless on most cases.

Here too. I know someone who was being stalked. The guy broke into her house and left clear finger prints on the glass. She called the cops. They came and said "call us if he comes back." She protested, and asked that they do something. They said "what do you want us to do? We don't know who the guy is." She said, "take those fingerprints that are visible on the glass where he broke in." They said: "This isn't TV lady."

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

As to the OP: There are a lot of firearms that don't even need to be registered.

Then there are throw away records. When you buy certain firearms, in certain places, your name and purchase info is thrown away at a set date after you make the purchase (the idea is that if the government has a list of every gun and who owns it, they can seize them much more easily).

Then there are person-to-person sales, which don't need to be recorded (for example, John buys a .243. A week later he sells it to Bill in his basement for cash. A week later Bill sells it to a guy he met at a bar for cash. That guy now has the gun, and it isn't traceable back to him through any paper trail). Face-to-face sales are the basis of gun shows where people can walk in and buy a gun with no background check or registration of any kind.

Then there are losses and thefts. In many states, you don't even have to report a stolen or lost firearm. Even where the law says a person must, they can simply wait until the cops come knocking to inquire about their gun that they can say "well, I just realized it was stolen right now."

There are also scratched serials. A gun without a serial number cannot be traced back to the original point of purchase. But it's a felony to possess a gun with the serial number scratched off, even if it's your legally owned firearm.

Then there's the question of actually finding the firearm used in a crime. If they do that they may be able to trace to back to someone, or fingerprint it. But a lot of times they cannot, for all the reasons stated above. So it usually comes down to a question of possession. If it's in a suspects possession, it's often assumed he committed the crime.

[Magón]

although you can't private transfer handguns.

In some states in the US, yes you can. It depends on the state; in California you can't as far as I know, but there are others you can private transfer handguns. Nevada is one of them, along with Arizona.

[rundontwalk]

I hope the OP isn't planning on killing someone. :lol:

[Ocean Seal]

Here too. I know someone who was being stalked. The guy broke into her house and left clear finger prints on the glass. She called the cops. They came and said "call us if he comes back." She protested, and asked that they do something. They said "what do you want us to do? We don't know who the guy is." She said, "take those fingerprints that are visible on the glass where he broke in." They said: "This isn't TV lady."
Yes, I would say that in addition if your fingerprints aren't in the system the mystery is much harder to solve. Also CSI solves mysteries in the most absurd ways that no normal police department would think of.

[ellipsis]

My bad. I think I was thinking of transferring handguns between states, which requires an FFL no matter what, i.e. buying a handgun out of state of residence at a gun store.

[ellipsis]

I am pre-emptively closing this thread. I think this discussion of black market guns has gone far enough. OP's question has been answered.

ВАЛТЕР (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=39442)- Please do not talk about personally violating firearm laws. This is a warning. I shouldn't have let you get away with it once, let alone twice.